(Pic AI generated)
CONTRASTING WORLDVIEWS – ‘what lies beneath’
Here’s some quotes – which could not be more relevant to our times. Note the dates….
‘All thinking worthy of the name now must be ecological’, Lewis Mumford (1964, 393).
‘The shape of the global future rests with….the capacity to think critically about why we think what we do – and then to think and act differently’. Paul Raskin 2008, 469).
If we want to educate for the chances of a more sustainable future, it’s critically important to understand the role of the dominant mechanistic worldview that is driving our current destructive trajectory – in order to be able to resist it and change it. But also it’s equally essential to be clear about the ecological/holistic (or relational) worldview which motivates, empowers and underpins this essential work – and thereby helps us envision and create a saner and safer future.
These two different ways of seeing, knowing and acting in the world are centuries old in Western culture, but the current global rise of far-right politics and neo-liberal thinking is a re-assertion of the mechanistic view in the extreme. This view of the world, if left unchecked, will worsen the polycrisis/metacrisis and take us towards a dehumanised and dystopian future. The urgent transition towards the ecological way of seeing and acting in the world involves deep societal learning and rethinking – a metanoia. This ‘essential shift’ in cultural in consciousness IS happening! but needs to be accelerated and on a huge scale.
The iceberg image conveys the idea that we need ‘surface’ both worldviews – i.e. the far right, in order to push back against the tide, but also the ecological to give hope to all those who know that things are wrong but are unclear about the grounding and implications of alternatives.
The table below is my attempt to clarify and present some (not all) of the critical differences between these worldviews. I hope it’s helpful.
The effect of these two contesting paradigms and their consequences for education and learning is addressed in my new book:
‘Learning and Sustainability in Dangerous Times’
| Far Right | Ecological |
|---|---|
| Mechanism as informing metaphor | Ecology as informing metaphor |
| Non-reflexive worldview | Critically reflexive worldview |
| Reductionism/separation/non-relational | Holism/entanglement/relationalism |
| Earth as resource | Earth and its living systems as home |
| Materialist perspective | Material, non-material and spiritual domains embraced |
| Anthropocentricism, human exceptionalism and egocentrism | Ecocentricism and Gaianism |
| Individualism and libertarianism | Collectivism and community |
| Economism, neoliberalism | A nesting (holonic) view: economy as subsidiary to society and both as subsidiary to a healthy biosphere |
| Extractive, degenerative economy | Regenerative and wellbeing economy |
| Faith in technology | Faith in humanity and nature |
| Ethical impoverishment, moral equivalence | Ethical depth and richness |
| Ethos of control and manipulation | Ethos of participation, collective wellbeing and self-organisation |
| Social Darwinism – I win/you lose stance | Humanitarianism – win/win for mutual benefit |
| No sense of enough, or of limits | Sense of limits and moderation |
| Narrow boundaries and close mindedness | Expansive system of concern, open-mindedness |
| Divisive, homogenising and exclusive: ‘us’ and ‘them’. | Inclusive, upholds cultural and ecological diversity. Recognition of the Other, mutuality and reciprocity |
| Inability to be critically self-reflexive/examine assumptions | Critically reflexive of own and others assumptions |
| No doubt, a need for certainty | Doubt as a healthy check, and not knowing, ambiguity and mystery is ok |
| Little humour or joy | Humour and joy as key to life |
| Inability to think systemically | A systemic sensibility; relational perception and thinking |
| Authoritarianism, directive, hierarchy | Participative democracy, co-creative, heterarchy |
| Absence of love and compassion; hubris | A basis of love and compassion; humility |
